Monographs by Lennart Lehmhaus
Seder Eliyahu Zuta (SEZ), as well as its fellow-text called Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER), is a fasci... more Seder Eliyahu Zuta (SEZ), as well as its fellow-text called Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER), is a fascinating work, most likely datable in Late Antiquity or early medieval times (ca. 8th – 10th centuries). The text displays a unique, though hybrid, character between moral guidebook, absorbing narrative and learned exposition.
For the first time, this dissertation provides an annotated and typographically structured German translation alongside with the Hebrew text of SEZ, based on Meir Friedmann`s edition (Vienna, 1902). The bi-lingual presentation is augmented with exhaustive annotations regarding sibling-traditions (SER/ Pseudo-SEZ), textual variants from all available manuscripts, fragments and the first printed edition as well as many Talmudic and Midrashic parallels and explanations of language(s) and context(s).
The second part of the project aimed at a thorough examination of literary-discursive, theological-ethical and socio-cultural dimensions of SEZ. Such a study has been nearly missing from scholarly discussion until now which focused solely on historically reliable facts to pinpoint an exact date and place of origin. In contrast to these attempts the dissertation employs a multi-layered approach combining theories and methods from historical, cultural and literary-discursive studies with fundamental philological questions.
Instead of following a common view of later Midrashim as stagnating and purely narrative, this study explores SEZ`s multifarious and skilful combination of literary genres, strategies (keywords/ clustering) and discursive structures. These make the text function for different audiences on different levels of comprehension. Of special importance are adoption, adaptation and innovative transformation of `classical´ rabbinic genres, of exegetical-hermeneutical techniques and language for the text’s own purposes. With intertextual sophistication the text employs quotes and references to various rabbinic traditions as literary tools in order to anchor its own discourse in the authority of the Written and Oral Torah.
The most characteristic feature of SEZ and its discursive backbone are first-person narratives about dialogic encounters with various non-rabbinic others. These passages convey essential ideas (basic knowledge of Scripture, the most important prayers and benedictions as well as moral behavior and piety) that form a core Jewish identity, rabbinically biased though. This provided an appealing and accessible alternative for Jews from different educational and social backgrounds. Furthermore, in a self-reflexive sense it attests to a growing interest in and interaction with broader society and a new (self-) understanding of the role of the sages.
Based on these findings the thematic analysis demonstrates how SEZ conveys its theological-ethical discourse in a dense and incisive way that has probably no rival in rabbinic literature. The main idea of God`s benevolence and indulgence towards man, especially Israel, is presented as a perfect role model for righteous conduct and ethical self-responsibility (Derekh Eretz). Endless divine mercy as a central theme is intertwined with a complex discourse on the suffering of the righteous (tzadiq), the ideal of poverty and humbleness, together with the ethical practice of charity (tzedaqah), solidarity and good deeds. These ideas have close parallels in Jewish ethical texts (Avot/ ARN/ DER/ DEZ) as well as in Syriac-Christian and Muslims traditions.
This dissertation raises the awareness for subtle strategies of literary transmission, adaptation, and innovation in Seder Eliyahu and other so called “later midrashim” (PRE, PesR, KohR/ Tanhuma) – broader semantic-lexical interest, construction of an author/narrator-character, and a monographic structure with exposition and conclusion made them precursors of later developments in Geonic and medieval Jewish literature. This insight will facilitate to grasp their transformative function as a link between late antique and early medieval times.
Moreover, these literary and thematic changes shed light on the historical context of SEZ. The radical socio-cultural, economic and religious transformations in the early Muslim and Geonic period, together with a greater inner-Jewish diversity, challenged and called for transformations in form and content. It seems that the text is engaged in a kind of mediation between several Jewish discourses or ideologies (Masoretic/ Talmudic-Geonic/ Proto-Karaite) of its time and various other cultural-religious formations (Arabic/ Muslim/ Syriac-Christian etc.).
The dissertation helps to allocate Seder Eliyahu within the discursive history of (rabbinic) Judaism and its socio-historical setting. In addition, the study outlines the potential role of this particular text as a rather marginal voice that probably aimed at the heart of a broader, shared discursive space in its cultural context in the early Islamicate world. The universal discourse and agenda of “minimal Judaism” would
Sourcebooks of Ancient Sciences Series. Mohr Siebeck, 2023
Dissertation by Lennart Lehmhaus
Edited Books by Lennart Lehmhaus
This new series attempts to study ancient histories of knowledge and their entanglement with reli... more This new series attempts to study ancient histories of knowledge and their entanglement with religious, cultural and socio-political aspects, while paying attention to the historicity and cultural relativity of specific figurations of knowledge.
The contributions collected here discuss the emergence, transfer and transformations of theoretic... more The contributions collected here discuss the emergence, transfer and transformations of theoretical and practical gynaecologic knowledge in ancient medical and other traditions. The authors investigate the cultural practices and socio-religious norms that enabled and constrained the production and application of gynaecologic knowledge and know-how – for example, concepts of the female body, ritual im/purity, or myth. Some studies focus more on the role and function of female patients and medical specialists – female doctors, healers, midwives or wet-nurses – as objects and subjects within ancient medical discourses.
The interdisciplinary nature of the studies provides ample opportunity for a comparative exploration of female bodies and medical expertise on them across the geographically diverse but culturally often closely entangled Ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, Persian, Byzantine, early Christian, Jewish-Talmudic, and Syriac cultures. Similarities and differences can be discerned in the various realms – ranging from the adoption of medical terminology or development of loanwords/calques, and the transfer and appropriation of certain gynaecologic theories, metaphors and concepts to more structural questions about the discursive representation of such knowledge and its (con)textual incorporation.
The volume aims to help stimulate a fruitful interdisciplinary and trans-generational exchange about the topic, drawing on a wide range of methodological and theoretical tools, including philology, linguistics, narratology/close reading, literary and discursive analysis, material culture, socio-historical perspectives, gender studies, or cultural and religious history.
The whole book is OPEN ACCESS (courtesy of the SFB 980 "Episteme" and the German Research Foundat... more The whole book is OPEN ACCESS (courtesy of the SFB 980 "Episteme" and the German Research Foundation-DFG)
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=/ddo/artikel/81690/978-3-447-10826-3_Kostenloser%20Open%20Access-Download.pdf#pagemode=thumbs#pagemode=thumbs
The present volume brings together a group of scholars from diverse fields in Jewish studies who deal with Jewish medical knowledge from ancient to medieval times, applying a comparative approach to the subject. Based on a variety of methodological and theoretical concepts, they address strategies of interaction with earlier Jewish traditions and the deep embeddedness in other, often religiously shaped discourses (exegesis, ethics, Talmudic law and lore).
Special attention is paid to the complex interplay between literary forms and the knowledge conveyed. Diachronic approaches also explore the complex ways of transmission, transfer, rejection, modification and invention of medical knowledge. Possible contexts and points of contacts can be found in medical thinking and practices in surrounding cultures (Ancient Near East, Graeco-Roman, Byzantine, Persian-Iranian, Syriac and medieval Western Christianity, early Islamic).
Such a twofold perspective allows for assessing particularities of Jewish medical discourses within Jewish cultural history and their trans-cultural interaction with other medical traditions. Moreover, these studies may serve as a starting point to further inquiries into the role of these exchanges and entanglements, not only within a broader history of medicine, science and knowledge, but also for the history of cultures and religions at large.
With a clear comparative approach, this volume brings together for the first time contributions t... more With a clear comparative approach, this volume brings together for the first time contributions that cover different periods of the history of ancient pharmacology, from Greek, Byzantine, and Syriac medicine to the Rabbinic-Talmudic medical discourses. This collection opens up new synchronic and diachronic perspectives in the study of the ancient traditions of recipe-books and medical collections. Besides the highly influential Galenic tradition, the contributions will focus on less studied Byzantine and Syriac sources as well as on the Talmudic tradition, which has never been systematically investigated in relation to medicine. This inquiry will highlight the overwhelming mass of information about drugs and remedies, which accumulated over the centuries and was disseminated in a variety of texts belonging to distinct cultural milieus. Through a close analysis of some relevant case studies, this volume will trace some paths of this transmission and transformation of pharmacological knowledge across cultural and linguistic boundaries, by pointing to the variety of disciplines and areas of expertise involved in the process.
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Lennart Lehmhaus
Defining Jewish Medicine. Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Jewish Cultures and Traditions, 2021
FULLY OPEN ACCESS via publishers home page
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Journal of Early Christian History 9,2 , 2022
Abstract
According to recent studies, pain can be conceptualised both as a bodily sensation and ... more Abstract
According to recent studies, pain can be conceptualised both as a bodily sensation and as a complex sociocultural phenomenon shaped by experience, expectations, and presumptions. This article analyses descriptions of agonising intestinal and inflammatory ailments with their various sensual and socio-religious implications as specific rabbinic expressions of and reactions to broader ancient understandings of pain. The study of two talmudic narratives explores a complex network of late antique Jewish ideas about pain, especially connected to bodily swellings and bowel disease, in which religious, legal, ethical, cognitive, and medical aspects intertwine. I submit that the depiction of eminent rabbinic scholars as “suffering selves” fits well into the broader cultures of pain in the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. In these traditions, the always mediated (re)presentations of pain and experiences of suffering were often torn between fascination and aversion. Up to a certain point, the rabbis shared a cultural matrix and ideas on illness and agony with their contemporaries, especially religious experts like Christian authors, monastics, and ascetics. Therefore, these stories about self-afflicted pain and suffering were possibly formed as alternative Jewish answers reacting to and interacting with Graeco-Roman “cultures of pain” as well as emerging Jewish and Christian conceptions of martyrdom, asceticism, and the suffering self in late antiquity. Through a comparison with earlier texts, this article examines how this rabbinic counter-discourse feeds on and appropriates but also rejects Graeco-Roman and early Christian traditions about the punitive, refining, ascetic, and sanctifying purposes of bodily suffering and abdominal agony.
‘Madness’ in the Ancient World: Innate or Acquired? From Theoretical Concepts to Daily Life., 2023
In: ‘Madness’ in the Ancient World: Innate or Acquired? From Theoretical Concepts to Daily Life. ... more In: ‘Madness’ in the Ancient World: Innate or Acquired? From Theoretical Concepts to Daily Life. Edited by Christian Laes and Irina Metzler; ASH 10; Turnhout: Brepols, 2023, pp. 189–228
International Medical Historical Review VIII,2, 2023
,In: Véronique Boudon-Millot, Min Fanxiang, Yang Liqiong, eds., The Origins of Ancient Medicine: ... more ,In: Véronique Boudon-Millot, Min Fanxiang, Yang Liqiong, eds., The Origins of Ancient Medicine: Looking from East and West, International Medical Historical Review VIII,2, Peking: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2023, pp. 223–255. [In Chinese]
Jewish Quarterly Review 103,4 , 2023
L. Lehmhaus, “Bodies of Texts, Bodies of Tradition – medical expertise and knowledge of the body ... more L. Lehmhaus, “Bodies of Texts, Bodies of Tradition – medical expertise and knowledge of the body among rabbinic Jews in Late Antiquity,” in Finding, Inheriting or Borrowing? Construction and Transfer of Knowledge about Man and Nature in Antiquity and the Middle Ages; hg.v. Tanja Pommerening, Jochen Althoff, Dominik Berrens; Bielefeld: transcript, 2019, 123–166.
Defining Jewish Medicine. Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Premodern Jewish Cultures and Traditions, 2021
Defining Jewish Medicine. Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Premodern Jewish Cultures and Traditions, 2021
Representing Jewish Thought. Studies in Honour of Ada Rappoport- Albert, 2021
Pain in Biblical Texts and Other Materials of the Ancient Mediterranean, 2021
Forms of List-Making: Epistemic, Literary, and Visual Enumeration, 2022
This chapter explores the diverse manifestations of lists in rabbinic texts of late antiquity and... more This chapter explores the diverse manifestations of lists in rabbinic texts of late antiquity and their complex strategies of structuring, producing, and conveying knowledge through lists. The discussion is embedded within a broader perspective on lists as didactic and epistemic tools within ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. I argue that lists play an important role in the production of knowledge in premodern Jewish culture. The following examples aim to demonstrate that in Talmudic medical discourse, in legal prescriptions, in exegetical and in ethical midrashic texts, lists function as a versatile “epistemic form.” Lists shaped the rabbinic collections of law and lore that functioned simultaneously as cultural inventories, store houses of knowledge, and practical reference works. They thus facilitate the transfer of knowledge of the world and of the body into the world of the rabbinic study house and eventually into the quasi-canonical Talmudic corpus, an encyclopedic body of knowledge.
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Monographs by Lennart Lehmhaus
For the first time, this dissertation provides an annotated and typographically structured German translation alongside with the Hebrew text of SEZ, based on Meir Friedmann`s edition (Vienna, 1902). The bi-lingual presentation is augmented with exhaustive annotations regarding sibling-traditions (SER/ Pseudo-SEZ), textual variants from all available manuscripts, fragments and the first printed edition as well as many Talmudic and Midrashic parallels and explanations of language(s) and context(s).
The second part of the project aimed at a thorough examination of literary-discursive, theological-ethical and socio-cultural dimensions of SEZ. Such a study has been nearly missing from scholarly discussion until now which focused solely on historically reliable facts to pinpoint an exact date and place of origin. In contrast to these attempts the dissertation employs a multi-layered approach combining theories and methods from historical, cultural and literary-discursive studies with fundamental philological questions.
Instead of following a common view of later Midrashim as stagnating and purely narrative, this study explores SEZ`s multifarious and skilful combination of literary genres, strategies (keywords/ clustering) and discursive structures. These make the text function for different audiences on different levels of comprehension. Of special importance are adoption, adaptation and innovative transformation of `classical´ rabbinic genres, of exegetical-hermeneutical techniques and language for the text’s own purposes. With intertextual sophistication the text employs quotes and references to various rabbinic traditions as literary tools in order to anchor its own discourse in the authority of the Written and Oral Torah.
The most characteristic feature of SEZ and its discursive backbone are first-person narratives about dialogic encounters with various non-rabbinic others. These passages convey essential ideas (basic knowledge of Scripture, the most important prayers and benedictions as well as moral behavior and piety) that form a core Jewish identity, rabbinically biased though. This provided an appealing and accessible alternative for Jews from different educational and social backgrounds. Furthermore, in a self-reflexive sense it attests to a growing interest in and interaction with broader society and a new (self-) understanding of the role of the sages.
Based on these findings the thematic analysis demonstrates how SEZ conveys its theological-ethical discourse in a dense and incisive way that has probably no rival in rabbinic literature. The main idea of God`s benevolence and indulgence towards man, especially Israel, is presented as a perfect role model for righteous conduct and ethical self-responsibility (Derekh Eretz). Endless divine mercy as a central theme is intertwined with a complex discourse on the suffering of the righteous (tzadiq), the ideal of poverty and humbleness, together with the ethical practice of charity (tzedaqah), solidarity and good deeds. These ideas have close parallels in Jewish ethical texts (Avot/ ARN/ DER/ DEZ) as well as in Syriac-Christian and Muslims traditions.
This dissertation raises the awareness for subtle strategies of literary transmission, adaptation, and innovation in Seder Eliyahu and other so called “later midrashim” (PRE, PesR, KohR/ Tanhuma) – broader semantic-lexical interest, construction of an author/narrator-character, and a monographic structure with exposition and conclusion made them precursors of later developments in Geonic and medieval Jewish literature. This insight will facilitate to grasp their transformative function as a link between late antique and early medieval times.
Moreover, these literary and thematic changes shed light on the historical context of SEZ. The radical socio-cultural, economic and religious transformations in the early Muslim and Geonic period, together with a greater inner-Jewish diversity, challenged and called for transformations in form and content. It seems that the text is engaged in a kind of mediation between several Jewish discourses or ideologies (Masoretic/ Talmudic-Geonic/ Proto-Karaite) of its time and various other cultural-religious formations (Arabic/ Muslim/ Syriac-Christian etc.).
The dissertation helps to allocate Seder Eliyahu within the discursive history of (rabbinic) Judaism and its socio-historical setting. In addition, the study outlines the potential role of this particular text as a rather marginal voice that probably aimed at the heart of a broader, shared discursive space in its cultural context in the early Islamicate world. The universal discourse and agenda of “minimal Judaism” would
Dissertation by Lennart Lehmhaus
Edited Books by Lennart Lehmhaus
The interdisciplinary nature of the studies provides ample opportunity for a comparative exploration of female bodies and medical expertise on them across the geographically diverse but culturally often closely entangled Ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, Persian, Byzantine, early Christian, Jewish-Talmudic, and Syriac cultures. Similarities and differences can be discerned in the various realms – ranging from the adoption of medical terminology or development of loanwords/calques, and the transfer and appropriation of certain gynaecologic theories, metaphors and concepts to more structural questions about the discursive representation of such knowledge and its (con)textual incorporation.
The volume aims to help stimulate a fruitful interdisciplinary and trans-generational exchange about the topic, drawing on a wide range of methodological and theoretical tools, including philology, linguistics, narratology/close reading, literary and discursive analysis, material culture, socio-historical perspectives, gender studies, or cultural and religious history.
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=/ddo/artikel/81690/978-3-447-10826-3_Kostenloser%20Open%20Access-Download.pdf#pagemode=thumbs#pagemode=thumbs
The present volume brings together a group of scholars from diverse fields in Jewish studies who deal with Jewish medical knowledge from ancient to medieval times, applying a comparative approach to the subject. Based on a variety of methodological and theoretical concepts, they address strategies of interaction with earlier Jewish traditions and the deep embeddedness in other, often religiously shaped discourses (exegesis, ethics, Talmudic law and lore).
Special attention is paid to the complex interplay between literary forms and the knowledge conveyed. Diachronic approaches also explore the complex ways of transmission, transfer, rejection, modification and invention of medical knowledge. Possible contexts and points of contacts can be found in medical thinking and practices in surrounding cultures (Ancient Near East, Graeco-Roman, Byzantine, Persian-Iranian, Syriac and medieval Western Christianity, early Islamic).
Such a twofold perspective allows for assessing particularities of Jewish medical discourses within Jewish cultural history and their trans-cultural interaction with other medical traditions. Moreover, these studies may serve as a starting point to further inquiries into the role of these exchanges and entanglements, not only within a broader history of medicine, science and knowledge, but also for the history of cultures and religions at large.
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Lennart Lehmhaus
https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/OBP.0375
According to recent studies, pain can be conceptualised both as a bodily sensation and as a complex sociocultural phenomenon shaped by experience, expectations, and presumptions. This article analyses descriptions of agonising intestinal and inflammatory ailments with their various sensual and socio-religious implications as specific rabbinic expressions of and reactions to broader ancient understandings of pain. The study of two talmudic narratives explores a complex network of late antique Jewish ideas about pain, especially connected to bodily swellings and bowel disease, in which religious, legal, ethical, cognitive, and medical aspects intertwine. I submit that the depiction of eminent rabbinic scholars as “suffering selves” fits well into the broader cultures of pain in the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. In these traditions, the always mediated (re)presentations of pain and experiences of suffering were often torn between fascination and aversion. Up to a certain point, the rabbis shared a cultural matrix and ideas on illness and agony with their contemporaries, especially religious experts like Christian authors, monastics, and ascetics. Therefore, these stories about self-afflicted pain and suffering were possibly formed as alternative Jewish answers reacting to and interacting with Graeco-Roman “cultures of pain” as well as emerging Jewish and Christian conceptions of martyrdom, asceticism, and the suffering self in late antiquity. Through a comparison with earlier texts, this article examines how this rabbinic counter-discourse feeds on and appropriates but also rejects Graeco-Roman and early Christian traditions about the punitive, refining, ascetic, and sanctifying purposes of bodily suffering and abdominal agony.
https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/uploads/tx_sgpublisher/produkte/leseproben/9783161606410.pdf
For the first time, this dissertation provides an annotated and typographically structured German translation alongside with the Hebrew text of SEZ, based on Meir Friedmann`s edition (Vienna, 1902). The bi-lingual presentation is augmented with exhaustive annotations regarding sibling-traditions (SER/ Pseudo-SEZ), textual variants from all available manuscripts, fragments and the first printed edition as well as many Talmudic and Midrashic parallels and explanations of language(s) and context(s).
The second part of the project aimed at a thorough examination of literary-discursive, theological-ethical and socio-cultural dimensions of SEZ. Such a study has been nearly missing from scholarly discussion until now which focused solely on historically reliable facts to pinpoint an exact date and place of origin. In contrast to these attempts the dissertation employs a multi-layered approach combining theories and methods from historical, cultural and literary-discursive studies with fundamental philological questions.
Instead of following a common view of later Midrashim as stagnating and purely narrative, this study explores SEZ`s multifarious and skilful combination of literary genres, strategies (keywords/ clustering) and discursive structures. These make the text function for different audiences on different levels of comprehension. Of special importance are adoption, adaptation and innovative transformation of `classical´ rabbinic genres, of exegetical-hermeneutical techniques and language for the text’s own purposes. With intertextual sophistication the text employs quotes and references to various rabbinic traditions as literary tools in order to anchor its own discourse in the authority of the Written and Oral Torah.
The most characteristic feature of SEZ and its discursive backbone are first-person narratives about dialogic encounters with various non-rabbinic others. These passages convey essential ideas (basic knowledge of Scripture, the most important prayers and benedictions as well as moral behavior and piety) that form a core Jewish identity, rabbinically biased though. This provided an appealing and accessible alternative for Jews from different educational and social backgrounds. Furthermore, in a self-reflexive sense it attests to a growing interest in and interaction with broader society and a new (self-) understanding of the role of the sages.
Based on these findings the thematic analysis demonstrates how SEZ conveys its theological-ethical discourse in a dense and incisive way that has probably no rival in rabbinic literature. The main idea of God`s benevolence and indulgence towards man, especially Israel, is presented as a perfect role model for righteous conduct and ethical self-responsibility (Derekh Eretz). Endless divine mercy as a central theme is intertwined with a complex discourse on the suffering of the righteous (tzadiq), the ideal of poverty and humbleness, together with the ethical practice of charity (tzedaqah), solidarity and good deeds. These ideas have close parallels in Jewish ethical texts (Avot/ ARN/ DER/ DEZ) as well as in Syriac-Christian and Muslims traditions.
This dissertation raises the awareness for subtle strategies of literary transmission, adaptation, and innovation in Seder Eliyahu and other so called “later midrashim” (PRE, PesR, KohR/ Tanhuma) – broader semantic-lexical interest, construction of an author/narrator-character, and a monographic structure with exposition and conclusion made them precursors of later developments in Geonic and medieval Jewish literature. This insight will facilitate to grasp their transformative function as a link between late antique and early medieval times.
Moreover, these literary and thematic changes shed light on the historical context of SEZ. The radical socio-cultural, economic and religious transformations in the early Muslim and Geonic period, together with a greater inner-Jewish diversity, challenged and called for transformations in form and content. It seems that the text is engaged in a kind of mediation between several Jewish discourses or ideologies (Masoretic/ Talmudic-Geonic/ Proto-Karaite) of its time and various other cultural-religious formations (Arabic/ Muslim/ Syriac-Christian etc.).
The dissertation helps to allocate Seder Eliyahu within the discursive history of (rabbinic) Judaism and its socio-historical setting. In addition, the study outlines the potential role of this particular text as a rather marginal voice that probably aimed at the heart of a broader, shared discursive space in its cultural context in the early Islamicate world. The universal discourse and agenda of “minimal Judaism” would
The interdisciplinary nature of the studies provides ample opportunity for a comparative exploration of female bodies and medical expertise on them across the geographically diverse but culturally often closely entangled Ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, Persian, Byzantine, early Christian, Jewish-Talmudic, and Syriac cultures. Similarities and differences can be discerned in the various realms – ranging from the adoption of medical terminology or development of loanwords/calques, and the transfer and appropriation of certain gynaecologic theories, metaphors and concepts to more structural questions about the discursive representation of such knowledge and its (con)textual incorporation.
The volume aims to help stimulate a fruitful interdisciplinary and trans-generational exchange about the topic, drawing on a wide range of methodological and theoretical tools, including philology, linguistics, narratology/close reading, literary and discursive analysis, material culture, socio-historical perspectives, gender studies, or cultural and religious history.
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=/ddo/artikel/81690/978-3-447-10826-3_Kostenloser%20Open%20Access-Download.pdf#pagemode=thumbs#pagemode=thumbs
The present volume brings together a group of scholars from diverse fields in Jewish studies who deal with Jewish medical knowledge from ancient to medieval times, applying a comparative approach to the subject. Based on a variety of methodological and theoretical concepts, they address strategies of interaction with earlier Jewish traditions and the deep embeddedness in other, often religiously shaped discourses (exegesis, ethics, Talmudic law and lore).
Special attention is paid to the complex interplay between literary forms and the knowledge conveyed. Diachronic approaches also explore the complex ways of transmission, transfer, rejection, modification and invention of medical knowledge. Possible contexts and points of contacts can be found in medical thinking and practices in surrounding cultures (Ancient Near East, Graeco-Roman, Byzantine, Persian-Iranian, Syriac and medieval Western Christianity, early Islamic).
Such a twofold perspective allows for assessing particularities of Jewish medical discourses within Jewish cultural history and their trans-cultural interaction with other medical traditions. Moreover, these studies may serve as a starting point to further inquiries into the role of these exchanges and entanglements, not only within a broader history of medicine, science and knowledge, but also for the history of cultures and religions at large.
https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/OBP.0375
According to recent studies, pain can be conceptualised both as a bodily sensation and as a complex sociocultural phenomenon shaped by experience, expectations, and presumptions. This article analyses descriptions of agonising intestinal and inflammatory ailments with their various sensual and socio-religious implications as specific rabbinic expressions of and reactions to broader ancient understandings of pain. The study of two talmudic narratives explores a complex network of late antique Jewish ideas about pain, especially connected to bodily swellings and bowel disease, in which religious, legal, ethical, cognitive, and medical aspects intertwine. I submit that the depiction of eminent rabbinic scholars as “suffering selves” fits well into the broader cultures of pain in the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. In these traditions, the always mediated (re)presentations of pain and experiences of suffering were often torn between fascination and aversion. Up to a certain point, the rabbis shared a cultural matrix and ideas on illness and agony with their contemporaries, especially religious experts like Christian authors, monastics, and ascetics. Therefore, these stories about self-afflicted pain and suffering were possibly formed as alternative Jewish answers reacting to and interacting with Graeco-Roman “cultures of pain” as well as emerging Jewish and Christian conceptions of martyrdom, asceticism, and the suffering self in late antiquity. Through a comparison with earlier texts, this article examines how this rabbinic counter-discourse feeds on and appropriates but also rejects Graeco-Roman and early Christian traditions about the punitive, refining, ascetic, and sanctifying purposes of bodily suffering and abdominal agony.
https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/uploads/tx_sgpublisher/produkte/leseproben/9783161606410.pdf
Allerdings haben jüngere Studien, die neue theoretische und methodologische Zugänge nutzen, plausibel darlegen können, dass es auch in der jüdischen Tradition verschiedene Spielarten von Askese gegeben hat, die sich aus der Interaktion mit den Umgebungskulturen ergaben. Dies gilt sowohl für Übungsformen und Techniken, die mit physischen Aspekten verbunden sind, als auch solchen, welche sich eher der intellektuellen und spirituellen Sphäre zuordnen lassen.
Der Beitrag wird unterschiedliche Formen solcher intellektuellen und spirituellen Übungen anhand verschiedener Textbeispiele aus der spätantiken, rabbinischen Tradition aufzeigen. Ein besonderes Interesse gilt dabei auch der engen, zuweilen unauflösbaren, Verknüpfung zwischen einem asketischen Studium und körperlicher Askese in der Person des Gelehrten.
The contribution discusses adoptions and adaptations that mirror developments Arab-Muslim and Syriac Christian traditions as well as shifts within broader Jewish culture, especially among grammarians, Scripturalists and pre-Karaite groups. In this context, an increased attentiveness to Hebrew and a ‘return to Scripture’ can be observed. Moreover, in contrast to the polyphonic discourses in classical Midrash, authorial voices emerge in later texts. Most likely, the literary and intellectual blooming among non-rabbinic Jews played a major role in linking Arab-Muslim culture with Midrashic appropriations.
Abstract
Earlier scholarship on the history of medicine and science as well as on ancient Jewish history and Talmud tended to draw sharp distinction between rationale knowledge and magic or superstitious approaches to medicine and the body. Accordingly, many Talmudic passages with rather obscure recipes and therapeutic instructions have been interpreted as belonging to the latter category.
However, more recent studies into late ancient medicine, apotropaic texts and practices (e.g. , Aramaic and Syriac incantation bowls, papyri, amulets etc.) or into so-called miraculous healing in the Gospels and early Christian culture have pointed to the problematic nature of such a dichotomous approach. Projecting modern analytical distinctions between magic and medicine/science onto late ancient cultures, one risks to overlook the fluent boundaries and astonishing overlap between such ‘disciplines’ and their respective experts, even within the oeuvre of Graeco-Roman medical authors.
Moreover, Talmudic scholarship saw the rabbis in most cases as disapproving of magic and being solicitous about clear boundaries between legit religious practices and non-Jewish approaches that smacked of ‘magic’. This paper interrogates some passages with therapies and recipes that were seen as drawing heavily on ‘popular’ or ‘folk’ healing rather than on medical knowledge proper. However, reading them in light of recent scholarship, I will question usual assumptions about the exclusiveness of the spheres of medical, religious and ritual knowledge and its related practices for which ‘magic’ might be too narrow a category.
Beyond these contexts, rabbinic traditions display a wide range of opinions regarding pain and suffering, often tied to questions of ritual, religious norms (Halakha), theology and theodicy. While touching upon those dimensions as well, the paper will focus on the specific renditions of pain as a complex, embodied experience. Talmudic and Midrashic traditions provide manifold and astonishing information on pain that affects humans and animals. Since historians of culture and ancient (medical) authors have stressed the importance but also the limits of language and verbal expression for this topic, I will discuss the nuanced terminology for pain and rabbinic ways of expressing and communicating its different manifestations. These texts also offer a glimpse into the ideas held by rabbinic authors and (possibly) larger audiences about strategies to cope (medicinally and socially) with pain or to ease and to alleviate suffering - on a personal as well as on a religious-cultural level.
This talk will discuss some significant passages providing theoretical and practical knowledge about cures and remedies (plants, animal parts, minerals and metals) as well as some disease classification. These therapeutic advices, mostly well embedded in their religious-normative contexts, do not only contain unexpected and sometimes puzzling details and terminology. Moreover, they display conceptual structures and literary techniques that point to a certain familiarity with technical genres (recipes and even pharmacopoeia), while deploying also traditional rabbinic discursive forms. Finally, I will compare the particularities of the discussions of similar issues in the two Talmudic traditions that might reflect different underlying cultural assumptions and medical approaches, possibly cultivated in their surroundings. This will shed some light on possible interactions with and transfers of medical ideas within ancient cultures and provides some keys to the specific ways in which the rabbis adopted, integrated and authorized such knowledge.
My paper will discuss some shifts and transformations of the presentation and deployment of an author-character and its authority within three different late midrashic traditions. Primarily, I will focus on Seder Eliyahu Zuta (SEZ), as well as its fellow-text called Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER). These fascinating works (ca. 9th-10th ct.) are of a unique, though hybrid, character between a moral guidebook for righteous conduct and learned exposition (i.e. Midrash). The texts feature an exceptional figure of a first-person narrator in many passages that build the backbone of its complex discourse. While this author-persona seems at times to be an anonymous storyteller or preacher character, the text also spins many subtle links to the Biblical prophet Elijah himself. Another, nearly contemporary tradition of Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer (ca. 8th ct.) exhibits similar authorial features. The connection to R. Eliezer is elaborated upon not only in the title but also throughout the work and especially in the introductory chapters that construct an “intellectual biography” of its purported author. A third work, the so-called Alphabeta de-Ben Sira (10th/ 11th ct) introduces the whizz kid Ben Sira who grows from a witty but impudent toddler into a counselor at King Nebuchadnezzar’s court who is well-versed in all kinds of Jewish and foreign traditions. The narration follows Ben Sira’s coming of wisdom, which entails many critical side blows against some rabbinic traditions and other contemporary developments.
The paper will demonstrate the skillfulness with which those traditions employ their new ‘authors’ within different genres and micro-forms using exegetical and hermeneutical strategies which make the texts function for different audiences. Finally, a comparative perspective may shed some light on similar developments in the surrounding (Syriac-Christian, Muslim, Persian) cultures of the Geonic period that might have induced new concepts of authorship and narration in Jewish texts.
Abstract
Medicine, healing and healthcare in Late Antiquity were contested fields populated with a broad variety of practitioners. Their expertise often exhibit an astonishing overlap with other fields of knowledge (philosophy, religion, magic) in theory and practice. This paper will address different types of socio-medical interactions between Jews and non-Jews or rabbis and non-rabbinic experts regarding healing, pharmacology, midwifery and nursing. The discussion will also pay attention to cultural concepts and parallels in other ancient healing traditions that shaped the Talmudic discourse on practical healthcare.
22-25 June 2024
Lausanne and Online
For online or on-site participation, please register with:
[email protected]
Conference page: https://kurzelinks.de/45fn
European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS), Warsaw, 11-14 August 2019
Workshop convened by Michaela Bauks (Koblenz-Landau), Christina Risch (Koblenz-Landau), Lennart Lehmhaus (Berlin)
Final Submission (proposals and travel grant applications): 28 FEBRUARY 2019
The aim of this interdisciplinary unit is to foster readings of meal and food in East Mediterranean antiquity.
Concept/Organization: Lennart Lehmhaus (Free University Berlin)
Panelists:
Monika Amsler (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Ezra Blaustein (University of Chicago, USA)
Carmen Caballero Navas (University of Granada, Spain)
Kenneth Collins (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
Federico Dal Bo (University Barcelona, Spain)
Magdalena Janosikova (Queen Mary University of London, UK)
Lennart Lehmhaus (Free University of Berlin, Germany)
Aviad Recht (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
Elisha Russ-Fishbane (New York University, USA)
Carsten Schliwski (University of Cologne, Germany)
Tamas Visi (Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic)
Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (Goldsmiths University of London, UK)
Nimrod Zinger (Achva Academic College, Israel)
Chairs:
Yossi Chajes (University of Haifa, Israel)
Lennart Lehmhaus (Free University of Berlin, Germany)
Assaf Tamari (The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Israel)
Giuseppe Veltri (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Earlier studies typically assumed the idealized Graeco-Roman scientific thinking as the foil against which one retrieves parallels and influences, without paying attention to the plurality of cultural transfers and endemic developments in Late Antiquity. This seminar on rabbinic knowledge culture(s) from a comparative perspective engages a broader approach, asking how manifestations of different forms of ancient knowing impacted on the period under discussion, and in turn were shaped by larger socio-historical, cultural and religious formations. The contributions will inquire into different but interrelated fields of knowledge about nature and creatures (Watts Belser; Neis; Hayes), the body and medicine (Fonrobert, Lehmhaus), law, truth and philosophy (Hidary; Hayes), the senses and spatiality (Mandsager; Novick; Kalmin), and ethnography (Redfield). Special attention will be paid (e.g., by Kalmin; Hayes; Neis; Watts Belser; Fonrobert, Hoffmann Libson) to modes, practices, and concepts of knowing and reasoning (e.g., embodied knowledge; empiricism and theory; exegetical approaches) as well as to their epistemic dimensions (e.g., conceptualization of 'scientific' knowledge in ancient cultures and its embeddeness within other knowledge complexes; the "Jewishness" of knowledge in rabbinic texts). Papers will address rabbinic conceptions of knowledge transfer, acquisition or displacement with a focus on strategies of framing or representing expertise and experts in certain genres and discursive contexts (e.g., lists, de-/prescriptive narratives, Halakhic debates, compilational, encyclopaedic or epitomizing discourses).
The papers and discussions within this seminar shall help to increase the awareness for the topic within Jewish studies and beyond. Furthermore, the seminar will start a dialogue about methodological and theoretical issues at stake in such inquiries and it aims at fostering collaboration among the involved scholars and forging links between interested colleagues for future research on the topics at hand.
Outline of Panel section
Papers are invited on the theme of “Literary and discursive framing of concepts of (medical) knowledge in (Late) Antiquity”, extending from biblical and apocryphal texts, into later Jewish, Rabbinic-Talmudic traditions and beyond (i.e. early medieval time). The organizers explicitly welcome papers by scholars working on similar questions as those outlined in the following but dealing with neighboring or adjacent traditions (ancient Babylonia or Egypt; Graeco-Roman culture(s); Iranian traditions, early Christian or Syriac traditions; early Islam etc.)
Recent studies into ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman scientific traditions have emphasized the craft and artifice of those texts. On the one hand, these works can be characterized by a rather astonishing degree of literary expertise, discursive versatility and rhetorical sophistication. Ancient scientific authors were well versed not only in their very field of expertise but adopted and deployed many compositional techniques of their respective cultural milieu. On the other hand, scholars have pointed also to the complex framing of scientific knowledge in texts whose primary focus was poetic, historiographic or literary. This new trend in scholarship on ancient knowledge cultures pays attention to the complex interplay between form and content in the representations of these knowledge discourses. How does the use of rhetoric strategies, literary structures, or the choice of genres in ancient `scientific texts’ affect the ideas and concepts conveyed? In which ways does a specific hermeneutic (Listenwissenschaft/ encyclopaedism/ linguocentrism) not only serve as a ‘container’ but also as a method for knowledge acquisition
Based on these thoughts, the research unit welcomes presentations that ask how medical (and other related) knowledge is presented, or rather, represented in particular texts and contexts. Papers may address the question of how such knowledge discoursesare shaped and designed. One might ask further: who constructs this discourse and for whom? Which implicit or explicit authorial strategies and intentions might be discerned? How can the adoption or appropriation of certain textual strategies and compositional techniques rather be seen as a vital venue for knowledge transfer, rather than the actual content of the passage?
This set of questions pays attention to the embeddedness of medicine in Talmudic literature, other Jewish and further ancient traditions. So, it allows for valuable insights how medical information and other types of knowledge were integrated into different, overlapping discourses. Especially, the interplay between medical, religious, political, ethical and ritualdiscourses seems to be of crucial importance for a broader understanding of ancient knowledge cultures. Papers should be interested in a comparative approach and may apply theories and methods ranging from textual criticism and redaction history, toliteraryor discursive studies of ancient scientific texts that pay also attention to their socio-cultural framing. Jewish texts as a legacy and integral component of ancient Near Eastern cultures have to be examined carefully with regard to their concept of language, literacy/orality and their discursive techniques.
Although being primarily focused on Jewish traditions, the research unit would like to emphasize the comparative approach by inviting papers from scholars working in neighboring traditions on those and similar questions.
"The Silk-Roads as a model for exploring Eurasian transmissions of medical knowledge"
(Friday, 24 June 2016, 10:00-12:00,SFB-Villa, Schwendenerstr. 8, 14195 Berlin)
Organised by Project A03/ Teilprojekt A03
"The Transfer of Medical Episteme in the ‘Encyclopaedic’ Compilations of Late Antiquity"
Sponsored by CRC/ SFB 980
"Episteme in Motion. Transfer of Knowledge from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period"
Panel/ Session Chair: Prof. Charlotte Fonrobert
This panel examines different but interrelated aspects of discourses on bodies, health and disability in Jewish Late Antiquity against the backdrop of their cultural embeddedness in different context (i.e. Greco-Roman West and Iranian-Mesopotamian East). First, the panelists discuss the intertwinement of medical knowledge available to the rabbis and their religious and halakhic norms. Second, all presentations examine the nexus between abstract theological or scientific concepts and their more concrete implications in everyday life and cultural practices. Third, the contributions address the importance of literary and rhetoric representations of those ideas in narratives and other discursive forms.
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Cultures“, Project A03/ SFB 980, Freie Universität und Humboldt-Universität Berlin, 3
November 2015
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